Buried Alive
by Pale18
Summary: This projected nightmare of waking in a coffin and suffocating leaves Poppy nervous, but James is the one truly shaken. However, the fear will only spark a new enthusiasm in him. Enthusiasm for what? Poppy never would have guessed.


A.N.) I finally wrote something for Poppy and James. I personally think there's just not enough stories in their achieve.

Disclaimer) I do not own Night World.

Buried Alive

Wherever Poppy was, it was dark, confined and heavy.

She woke laying on some soft material, giving off the impression that she was still in her soft bed, but when she lifted her arms to stretch a little, it was discovered that the ceiling was five inches from her face. Curious, she felt around and concluded this shallow roofing was some kind of polished wood. Above her head, to her sides, and her feet poked out to confirm there were barriers all around her.

It was a box. Her palms flattened themselves against top and pushed with all her strength but there was so much weight above her. With a starting shove and assumed vampire strength, several things became clear. The shuffling sound coming from outside with the push, Poppy instantly knew that this box she was in was surrounded by dirt. From that, it was deducible that she was underground. Screaming was pointless. There was little air; suffocating was evident.

Lastly, the fact that her arms were so weak and a familiar evil pain shooting into her abdomen made arguable that Poppy was not a vampire. She was human.

Cancer stricken again. Dying. Just as it was once before.

Maybe she was already dead. Perhaps this box was not just a box.

This was a…

Near breathless, Poppy whispered the ill-fated word that made her heart ache with woe. "Coffin."

Panicking was the response. Her fastened breathing shifted to hyperventilating as she desperately pounded on the top of the box, hoping to get it open. The word "trapped" flashed in her mind, which only made more frantic. Feeling the darkness and the earth enclosing on her, crushing her mind till her vision was weary with dizziness. Here it was, the air was almost gone and she'd die with burning lungs.

Burning lungs feeling so similar to bloodlust. That main pain and death a vampire would understand would be her own. Was it appropriate that her death felt like that?

Was she ever a vampire? Her life in Circle Daybreak with James, was it all a dream? And facade fantasy that reined her mind till the cancer supposedly ended her. Phil would move on with his perfect reputation. Her mother would mourn her and grow old with Cliff. For all she knew, Thea, Ash, Rashel, Hannah—all fabrications of her fried mentality. And James…

Her mind was thinking that he'd still go on dating girls with large busts and high, Italian pumps, but something beyond her mind was repulsive to the idea. Another's idea was shown to her in fades of pure depression. According to this other feeling being forced onto her, anxious to make her understand, James would be _miserable_ for the rest of his life.

She punched the top of her resting place in a sloppy, frail frenzy. Per _pound_, _pound_, _pound_, her knuckles bled.

_This is wrong_, she thought. _I shouldn't be here…_

Eventually, it felt like there was no air left in this grave. She was vanishing, suffocating, all alone.

Poppy couldn't accept this. It just couldn't be the end…

_James…_

Poppy eyes opened slowly as the darkness wasn't as dense as before. It wasn't pitch black like in the coffin, but was just regular nighttime that she could easily see through with the moonlight beaming through the small cracks in the curtains. Recognizing the beige Champaign carpeting and sparkling shear drapes, her mind screamed "Thierry's mansion"; in the room she shared with her soulmate, James. She could see the slight mess she made with closet yesterday with the clothes and James's sunglasses on the desk. Seeing all these little things that told her she was really home, made her feel so placid. So wonderful…

And this meant the coffin was just a cruel dream. Yet there was such sudden peace without even a brief stage of relief, Poppy doubted the nightmare was even that scary. It was almost as if the dream wasn't even her own.

_See, I'm already starting to forget!_

It was a dream but she still felt uncomfortable thinking about how smothered and tucked into one spot she was under the thick blanket. For a moment, she wondered if she'd be swallowed or never able to move again.

_It wasn't scary,_ Inner Poppy chided.

After all this time, and Poppy just barely noticed that James seemed to have his own crazy dream. The man had tension written all over his face. Before she could wake him herself, he sat up abruptly, eyes gasping for a grip on where he was.

"Jamie?" Poppy called, sitting up as well. She wrapped him up in her arms, stroking his hair with nurturing love.

At the sound of her voice, he turned to her with a stare that was both alarming and flattering. He was running on emotion that seemed to be complete panic. It was as if he couldn't believe that she was really there, but was willing to believe, whether doing so was accepting either reality or insanity. Her mind picked up projections of cold rage at something dark that was once inside of her, threating her. Relief and gratitude flashed like a second upon seeing that this image of life, what they were now, was being offered before him (and the hesitation to fully state as a fact that "this was all real").

There was sadness at the idea of what could have been. And that very line was being repeated over and over from James's thoughts, radiating to her own. What could have been?

Holding him about ten minutes made his breathing steady, his mind cleared where there was no illusions. He could tell what was real, what was a nightmare.

Humming to emphasis an idea, Poppy let James go and peered at him most curiously.

"Maybe nightmares are contagious? Mine was not a clairvoyant dream, to be sure."

"Thankfully, I can say mine has no chance of being one either," he replied with an exhausted breathe. He just seemed tired.

Counting down from three, James corrected predicted and welcomed Poppy's next move. Quick to take action, she bided herself to her boyfriend so tightly it would take the Jaws of Life to get her to budge a tad. Not that this was displeasing to James at all. After his nightmare, being as close as possible was alright in his book. He hugged back.

"I love you, Poppy," he murmured very bare, without any laces of attitude or teasing. She was gleaming, snuggling into his chest.

"I love you, Jamie!"

"Let's get married."

"Whatever you wa—ah…" A scratching record crashed Poppy's love-train of thoughts. He sounded so… serious about that. And forceful. Glancing up to his face that was so stern and straight, she realized he _was_ serious and forceful. "Uh…"

"Your mouth is open," he said, smirking at how comically horrified she looked. "Is the idea so shocking, Kid? We are destined to be a matching pair after all, as corny as it sounds, so why not?"

Being teased, Poppy harrumphed. "How about, 'Why now?' being the question then?"

Something about that struck a button in James. Anger was welling in his eyes, but not at Poppy. Of course not at Poppy. But at something else. His ego was taking some jabs; being open without their soulmate link was not hard but unsettling. James knew very well how much hell a misunderstanding could put him and his loved one through.

"Maybe that nightmare I had was a wakeup call about how we're wasting so much time. It's a no brainer that we'll marry one day. And I know how much you value marriage. So let's stop beating around the bush and get down to business."

"We're already are _like_ a married couple, James. Why is it so important to hurry in now? What about a nightmare could have set you off like this?" Poppy put her hands to her hips, trying to hold her own against her persuasive, quick-witted boyfriend.

"You were _dead_, Poppy," he strained, the very sentence like acid on his tongue. "You were gone and I watched it happened. I just went about the motions, sort of, and just acted normal up until you fading away from me… and then there was this coffin and I watched you there…

"I was so pissed at myself for not doing anything to help you. But now that I'm awake, image if I didn't rush into every possibility I could think of until I hastily decided to just risk everything and change you? I was so miserable in that dream, Poppet… I couldn't believe I was taking so long to kill myself…" Letting all this angst out was so good to him. He could breathe and think better, and he now smiled so proud and genuine.

"I love you so much, and I'm so glad that I have you here. And I know I have you completely, just as you have me, but it will make us both happy. I'd bet money one that."

Speechless, Poppy felt the pressure weighing down on her. Clearly, she knew what she wanted to say. Obviously, James was analyzing her face like an open book. But this night, and everything coming from it, was… suffocating her.

Realizing she was sooner faint than reply, James sighed, smirking again. "I recall picking up some loudly broadcasted thoughts, from a certain Poppet, many times that I was already engaged to her, but that I just wasn't fully aware of it yet."

Gasping, blush painted her cheeks. A slight sway hinted that she might _actually_ faint from sheer embarrassment.

And James just laughed at her.

"You're so cruel, Jamie…" Poppy whispered weakly, steam radiating from her burning blush.

With one arm, he crushed her to his side, entwining his hand over her own. Attempting to compose his girlfriend out of thankfulness for being amused, he intimately stroked her wrist with his thumb. Smiling from honest happiness, James rested his head on Poppy's copper clump of bedhead.

"So which season do you want to do this in?"

"I… never said yes though…" came the choked reply from the Poppet still embarrassed that her fiancé had been aware of her obsessive, teenage-girl thoughts.

He hummed with pleasure. "You just didn't say it in words."

"I vote for a summer wedding then…"

"Anything you want, Kid. As long as it's this summer and not next year."


End file.
